Then they're not really qualified to be making LSD. Ergot alkaloids are too valuable not to run the synthesis to the letter.The final clean up using alumina chromatography because you can use UV light to visualize the LSD separating from the iso-LSD and other junk. It's the step that will push the purity to >95% easily, and requires so little extra equipment it would be foolish to not do it. The modern synthesis actually produces very little iso-LSD apparently, but in the event that the chemist were to produce it, the seperated iso-LSD can actually be converted back into active LSD by a simple treatment with base. So worst case, you end up with high-purity LSD, best case you can convert the inactive impurity back into the goodies.
LSD chemists are not pop bottle shake and bake meth cooks. They take pride in their work. The people who can tolerate 3mg of garbage on their blotters are the NBOMers.
To be honest, I was never a big fan of the "dirty acid" theory myself, but I have at times seen good arguments for it. I'm not going to try to bring them here - because they're not my arguments. And as I said, I'm actually usually not an advocate of "dirty acid". I just choose to keep all doors open in lack of better evidence, and because I'm sure there's things going on we don't know about.
You're probably the most knowledgeable person on bluelight when it comes to chemistry, but in my opinion it's hubris to think that you now everything going on. Yes, in theory no LSD-chemist should be making "gunk" - But there's things going on you don't know about. I mean, do you personally know every LSD lab in the world, and how they work? So in lack of a smoking gun, I advocate humbleness to the question.
It's a fact, that there
is a phenomenon, of different batches of LSD eliciting different responses. And while placebo certainly also plays a huge role, that particular answer just don't cut it for me.
Coming to think of it, in this
thread here, a chemist that made some LSD just for himself, has this to say on the topic:
Hofmannwouldbeproud said:
Now, about "bad acid", the last step in making LSD is the separation of the inactive isomers and impurites from the active isomer d-iso-lysergic acid diethylamide. Only ~30% of the the crude product is LSD, the rest are these inactive isomers and some side reaction products as well. These impurities are only inactive in the brain, they have many effects on the body that contribute to the "body load" or "roughness" of the trip. I am certain that "bad acid" is unpurified crude product, containing a mixture of the aforementioned molecules and LSD. Acid needs to be purified via chromatography twice, once on silica to remove the side reaction products and leftover reactants, and a second time using a chiral substrate to separate the active isomers from the inactive ones. Large, professional labs could easily accomplish this, but smaller, less professional labs might forgo this and create what you call "bad acid".
Of cause, he's just some guy on the internet - but so are you
(
Okay, Just kidding, you're not.)
All I'm saying is that psychedelics, particularly LSD, are known to be highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry. If you're going to claim that impurities can be substantially active, or that LSD analogues have been sold as LSD on the black market, then you need to provide evidence for that claim. To do otherwise is to shift the burden of proof.
When we start believing and spreading things without evidence, then we potentially compromise harm reduction and become more and more like the shroomery. Do you really want that?
^^ Lol. I'd like to see that peer-reviewed study, concluding that placebo is the sole reason for the phenomenon of variable batches of LSD. Notice that I never claimed that psychedelics weren't "highly suggestful and variable due to set, setting, and body chemistry". Of cause they are, we all know that.
If you look in
this thread, you can see in DwayneHoover's post a GC/MS result of a blotter that contained a lysergamide that wasn't LSD, but maybe LSP or LSB. Results were inconclusive as to the exact nature of the compound - And this blotter was circulating years before the LSD analogs hit the RC market.
And we haven't even talked
polymorphism yet......I'm not claiming I know a lot about that, so I will refrain from having an opinion about it, but it
is fascinating.
All that said, I'm not here to convince anybody - You can believe what you will, I don't care.